Barbara and her sister, Suzanne hooked up and spent a pleasant three days amongst gardens and AGHS members at their 2008 conference recently. I’ve enclosed the first splash graphic above and loaded a rather large powerpoint full of their images, click on here. 112 images and 84Mb full, it will be a wait for the download but well worth it . . . here’s one more image:

The last graphic of the powerpoint has our local Qld. President’s contact details.

Seems like ages ago, in 2005 while trawling through items for sale on eBay I found a collection of “ghostly stories from the dark side”, every one a first edition . . . so I downloaded every title cover image and set up a movie I called Horror-Dank. I uploaded it to the viewer directory and wondered who would ever see it, Tim Gruchy did send an email in response to it and a few more I did around the same time, all clustered there together . . . on the viewer directory at least half way down the list:

Here, its a 9.8Mb download. Purely for the period dust jacket designs and the typography (so frozen in time) – enjoy!

Folks, my favourite London auction house – Bonhams is knocking down a sweet suite of new art in two days time (23-10-2008) in New Bond Street, London. Having been involved in (curating) and done my time making my own stencil marks now for nearly 30 years it has been interesting to track the urban art explosion on both sides of the Atlantic – Banksy in particular has now gone truly global . . . Banksy has been documented and listed on some of my favourite Flickr (image) sites <greenwood100> & <junkforcode-September 29 2008> and numerous personal blogs. So make the time to click through and get up-to-speed.

And for the record, I’ve just scanned and created a 28 page .pdf (13.31Mb) of the THAT Space catalogue I did for the all the spray boys & girls I worked with way back in 1984–1986 in New York City; Toyo Tsuchiya & Ken Hiratsuka (ken one line), Katie White (kate tastrophie) who now lives close-by at Coolum . . . there are only a few copies remaining now, as I’ve given most away to local boys with dirty fingernails, collectors and curators who have visited the studio & shown interest in these events over the recent years – download here.

The first email dropped in out of the blue from a Melbourne man who had done his own product surveillance and email address search to contact us – “I’ve seen a ring at one of your retailers here and I’m wondering if you have earrings in the same style”? No, but that’s a possibility . . . only we don’t have those sawn Diamond crystals any more. We sent this .pdf just to confirm the Bh style and options:

The next issue is sourcing the sawn Diamond crystals from NYC – Robert Bentley has supplied us previously but this time he says ” I can only sell within the USA because of the conflict diamond issue here”! . . . so a further delay until we can source & land from further afield. The next email, two months down the track confirms and shows two options, accompanied by a quote to design, make and supply. The once relaxed deadline is now looming:

Another long wait and another issue, “I want to make sure that they won’t fall off”? Yes, we understand (NO they won’t fall off) . . . we quickly send pics of Barbara’s own Double Leaf Lattice Earrings with Diamond Briolettes & fitted with safety omegas and assure the client that they will be safe. The deadline is confirmed for 10-10-2008 in Melbourne and we are under way. We dispatched these the evening of the 7-10-2008 after many emails, Barbara and Juan are delighted with the end result, having been pushed to bring into existence something neither imagined. I have to add finally that I have learned a lot following this commission, just how complex it is getting an earring to really fit the ear, drop correctly and be satisfying to wear forever. For the size queens – the larger final shot is here.

Only about three of these exist – in different configurations. I particularly love this Interlocking Ring – Barbara Heath solution (I wish I had one for myself) . . . all checked, cleaned and sent back to Sydney today.